<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
    
    <title>36.1. posix — The most common POSIX system calls &mdash; Python v2.6.2 documentation</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/default.css" type="text/css" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" />
    <script type="text/javascript">
      var DOCUMENTATION_OPTIONS = {
        URL_ROOT:    '../',
        VERSION:     '2.6.2',
        COLLAPSE_MODINDEX: false,
        FILE_SUFFIX: '.html',
        HAS_SOURCE:  true
      };
    </script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/jquery.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/doctools.js"></script>
    <link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml"
          title="Search within Python v2.6.2 documentation"
          href="../_static/opensearch.xml"/>
    <link rel="author" title="About these documents" href="../about.html" />
    <link rel="copyright" title="Copyright" href="../copyright.html" />
    <link rel="top" title="Python v2.6.2 documentation" href="../index.html" />
    <link rel="up" title="36. Unix Specific Services" href="unix.html" />
    <link rel="next" title="36.2. pwd — The password database" href="pwd.html" />
    <link rel="prev" title="36. Unix Specific Services" href="unix.html" />
    <link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/png" href="../_static/py.png" />
 

  </head>
  <body>
    <div class="related">
      <h3>Navigation</h3>
      <ul>
        <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px">
          <a href="../genindex.html" title="General Index"
             accesskey="I">index</a></li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="../modindex.html" title="Global Module Index"
             accesskey="M">modules</a> |</li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="pwd.html" title="36.2. pwd — The password database"
             accesskey="N">next</a> |</li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="unix.html" title="36. Unix Specific Services"
             accesskey="P">previous</a> |</li>
        <li><img src="../_static/py.png" alt=""
                 style="vertical-align: middle; margin-top: -1px"/></li>
        <li><a href="../index.html">Python v2.6.2 documentation</a> &raquo;</li>

          <li><a href="index.html" >The Python Standard Library</a> &raquo;</li>
          <li><a href="unix.html" accesskey="U">36. Unix Specific Services</a> &raquo;</li> 
      </ul>
    </div>  

    <div class="document">
      <div class="documentwrapper">
        <div class="bodywrapper">
          <div class="body">
            
  <div class="section" id="module-posix">
<h1>36.1. <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">posix</span></tt> &#8212; The most common POSIX system calls<a class="headerlink" href="#module-posix" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p><em>Platforms: </em>Unix</p>
<p>This module provides access to operating system functionality that is
standardized by the C Standard and the POSIX standard (a thinly disguised Unix
interface).</p>
<p id="index-483"><strong>Do not import this module directly.</strong>  Instead, import the module <a title="Miscellaneous operating system interfaces." class="reference external" href="os.html#module-os"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">os</span></tt></a>,
which provides a <em>portable</em> version of this interface.  On Unix, the <a title="Miscellaneous operating system interfaces." class="reference external" href="os.html#module-os"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">os</span></tt></a>
module provides a superset of the <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">posix</span></tt> interface.  On non-Unix operating
systems the <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">posix</span></tt> module is not available, but a subset is always
available through the <a title="Miscellaneous operating system interfaces." class="reference external" href="os.html#module-os"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">os</span></tt></a> interface.  Once <a title="Miscellaneous operating system interfaces." class="reference external" href="os.html#module-os"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">os</span></tt></a> is imported, there is
<em>no</em> performance penalty in using it instead of <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">posix</span></tt>.  In addition,
<a title="Miscellaneous operating system interfaces." class="reference external" href="os.html#module-os"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">os</span></tt></a> provides some additional functionality, such as automatically calling
<tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">putenv()</span></tt> when an entry in <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">os.environ</span></tt> is changed.</p>
<p>Errors are reported as exceptions; the usual exceptions are given for type
errors, while errors reported by the system calls raise <a title="exceptions.OSError" class="reference external" href="exceptions.html#exceptions.OSError"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">OSError</span></tt></a>.</p>
<div class="section" id="large-file-support">
<span id="posix-large-files"></span><h2>36.1.1. Large File Support<a class="headerlink" href="#large-file-support" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p id="index-484">Several operating systems (including AIX, HP-UX, Irix and Solaris) provide
support for files that are larger than 2 GB from a C programming model where
<tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">int</span></tt> and <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">long</span></tt> are 32-bit values. This is typically accomplished
by defining the relevant size and offset types as 64-bit values. Such files are
sometimes referred to as <em>large files</em>.</p>
<p>Large file support is enabled in Python when the size of an <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">off_t</span></tt> is
larger than a <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">long</span></tt> and the <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">long</span> <span class="pre">long</span></tt> type is available and is
at least as large as an <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">off_t</span></tt>. Python longs are then used to represent
file sizes, offsets and other values that can exceed the range of a Python int.
It may be necessary to configure and compile Python with certain compiler flags
to enable this mode. For example, it is enabled by default with recent versions
of Irix, but with Solaris 2.6 and 2.7 you need to do something like:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><pre>CFLAGS="`getconf LFS_CFLAGS`" OPT="-g -O2 $CFLAGS" \
        ./configure</pre>
</div>
<p>On large-file-capable Linux systems, this might work:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><pre>CFLAGS='-D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64' OPT="-g -O2 $CFLAGS" \
        ./configure</pre>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="notable-module-contents">
<span id="posix-contents"></span><h2>36.1.2. Notable Module Contents<a class="headerlink" href="#notable-module-contents" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>In addition to many functions described in the <a title="Miscellaneous operating system interfaces." class="reference external" href="os.html#module-os"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">os</span></tt></a> module documentation,
<tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">posix</span></tt> defines the following data item:</p>
<dl class="data">
<dt id="posix.environ">
<tt class="descclassname">posix.</tt><tt class="descname">environ</tt><a class="headerlink" href="#posix.environ" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>A dictionary representing the string environment at the time the interpreter
was started.  For example, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">environ['HOME']</span></tt> is the pathname of your home
directory, equivalent to <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">getenv(&quot;HOME&quot;)</span></tt> in C.</p>
<p>Modifying this dictionary does not affect the string environment passed on by
<tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">execv()</span></tt>, <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">popen()</span></tt> or <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">system()</span></tt>; if you need to change the
environment, pass <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">environ</span></tt> to <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">execve()</span></tt> or add variable assignments and
export statements to the command string for <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">system()</span></tt> or <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">popen()</span></tt>.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="first admonition-title">Note</p>
<p class="last">The <a title="Miscellaneous operating system interfaces." class="reference external" href="os.html#module-os"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">os</span></tt></a> module provides an alternate implementation of <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">environ</span></tt> which
updates the environment on modification.  Note also that updating <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">os.environ</span></tt>
will render this dictionary obsolete.  Use of the <a title="Miscellaneous operating system interfaces." class="reference external" href="os.html#module-os"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">os</span></tt></a> module version of
this is recommended over direct access to the <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">posix</span></tt> module.</p>
</div>
</dd></dl>

</div>
</div>


          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class="sphinxsidebar">
        <div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper">
            <h3><a href="../contents.html">Table Of Contents</a></h3>
            <ul>
<li><a class="reference external" href="">36.1. <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">posix</span></tt> &#8212; The most common POSIX system calls</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#large-file-support">36.1.1. Large File Support</a></li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#notable-module-contents">36.1.2. Notable Module Contents</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

            <h4>Previous topic</h4>
            <p class="topless"><a href="unix.html"
                                  title="previous chapter">36. Unix Specific Services</a></p>
            <h4>Next topic</h4>
            <p class="topless"><a href="pwd.html"
                                  title="next chapter">36.2. <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">pwd</span></tt> &#8212; The password database</a></p>
            <h3>This Page</h3>
            <ul class="this-page-menu">
              <li><a href="../_sources/library/posix.txt"
                     rel="nofollow">Show Source</a></li>
            </ul>
          <div id="searchbox" style="display: none">
            <h3>Quick search</h3>
              <form class="search" action="../search.html" method="get">
                <input type="text" name="q" size="18" />
                <input type="submit" value="Go" />
                <input type="hidden" name="check_keywords" value="yes" />
                <input type="hidden" name="area" value="default" />
              </form>
              <p class="searchtip" style="font-size: 90%">
              Enter search terms or a module, class or function name.
              </p>
          </div>
          <script type="text/javascript">$('#searchbox').show(0);</script>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class="clearer"></div>
    </div>
    <div class="related">
      <h3>Navigation</h3>
      <ul>
        <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px">
          <a href="../genindex.html" title="General Index"
             >index</a></li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="../modindex.html" title="Global Module Index"
             >modules</a> |</li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="pwd.html" title="36.2. pwd — The password database"
             >next</a> |</li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="unix.html" title="36. Unix Specific Services"
             >previous</a> |</li>
        <li><img src="../_static/py.png" alt=""
                 style="vertical-align: middle; margin-top: -1px"/></li>
        <li><a href="../index.html">Python v2.6.2 documentation</a> &raquo;</li>

          <li><a href="index.html" >The Python Standard Library</a> &raquo;</li>
          <li><a href="unix.html" >36. Unix Specific Services</a> &raquo;</li> 
      </ul>
    </div>
    <div class="footer">
      &copy; <a href="../copyright.html">Copyright</a> 1990-2009, Python Software Foundation.
      Last updated on Apr 15, 2009.
      Created using <a href="http://sphinx.pocoo.org/">Sphinx</a> 0.6.1.
    </div>
  </body>
</html>